


Testing, Testing, one two three.

by BananaQueen88



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Cooking, Dark Fic (Crime), Does Emiya have Humanity?, Eventual Romance, Gen, Hope, Implied / Referenced holy grail war, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Malnourishment Recovery, Multi, Organized Crime, Rule Utilitarian Philosophy, Shirou beeing shirou, Shirou is EMIYA, Stress appearing like PTSD, Sword Forging, Takes Place in 2013 / 2021 ish, implied / referenced aliens societies, implied / referenced future extinction event, realistic crime, the Testing of Ethical Systems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BananaQueen88/pseuds/BananaQueen88
Summary: Archer wakes up disorientated in a morgue, with strange inexplicable memories:"...Well, in any case, if the lead researcher had just stopped for a moment and calmed enough to just re-consider their foundational assumptions about the world in which they existed… then… Wait….What?I’ve never been to the Moon– there's no habitats there, certainly not one the size of a mega-city.But the memory was to visceral, to complex and rational and lived in, for all its impossibility... They all were".
Kudos: 5





	1. Waking

**Author's Note:**

> I recognise that this work was produced on the traditional lands of the Kaurna and Ngadjuri peoples.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recognise that this work was produced on the traditional lands of the Kaurna and Ngadjuri peoples.

There was this horrifically violent tug and suddenly Emiya woke, sat up, and spluttered through the water in his burning lungs. He could do nothing but rollover and cough as his mind screeched at him to get the water out of his lungs, and to breath in.

After a few moments of this desperate state, gasping for air, his mind finally caught up to the reality of his situation – he was alive. Not in the sense that he had been summoned and manifested as spirits were, but that he was truly alive and inhabiting his own body. He took in a deep calming breath and rolled over, spread eagle on cold steel.

He felt stunned – this was a real body – he could almost laugh. Its was physical and with its own magic circuits. How, how was this even possible? This didn’t make any sense; he was supposed to have remained phantasmal or at least bound in contract. Yet as he closed his eyes and felt through his soul to check for any sign that he was feeding off of the mana of another, as he tried to render himself non-physical, searched for any indication he was bound to a will not his own, he could only conclude that this was his body and his alone.

He could not even feel the tell tail fullness that would ‘permeate’ within his nasal cavities to indicate nearby magecraft. He felt the ghost of a smirk pull at his lips.

 _Well, first things first. Think, plan, adapt._ He needed to know where he was, to assess his immediate situation. If it was unstable, he needed to relocate.

He opened his eyes fighting the imitate aching urge to close them again. He was in a morgue, he realised. Lying on one of the sliding gurneys horizontal to the stainless steel ‘corps locker’ within one of the morgues cold chambers. There was no one else in the room, just the chemicals for cleaning and preparing the dead behind the glass case along the counter against the wall opposite him. There was a muffin sitting on its edge, smelling of coco. There was light streaming through slim rectangular windows along the top of the wall to his left. He was just under the ground floor. _The way out?_ grey dull stairs leading up sat squat in the corner, close to a wide doorway that leading deeper into the facility. 

He breathed in, taking in the clean zesty sent of lemon and the corrosive burning of embalming fluids permeating throughout the room, concealing the memory of death natural to his found habitat. 

_Safe enough to plan then,_ he decided as he sat up to reach out to the top of the long rectangular locker his gurney was attached to. He griped the edge, noticing his slighter emancipated arms – body – as he pulled, sliding the gurney into its box. He lay back down reaching back to close the locker door, leaving him in darkness. 

_Safe enough to think._

He needed to know his physical state. He looked inwards assessing his new – _albeit seemingly second hand_ – body, using structural analyses to check for any lingering injuries, first in his lungs, brain and heart. There was no damage. He checked next his peripheral nervous system and magic circuits finding nothing out of the ordinary. _Still twenty-seven, still quality poor._ Finally, he checked his musculature, ligaments, joints, veins, arteries and bones. All functioning, however weak. He noticed his core temperature was dropping and began to breath in and out rapidly while opening and closing his circuits, running just enough magical energy through them to burn calories and produce some heat. 

He heard the door next to the stairs burst open and the staccato of heels waltzing into the room.

His smirk bloomed into a smile. he had reincarnated – Someone had seen fit to reincarnate him. _That made less sense then him spontaneously reincarnating._ Emiya could understand why one might summon him; after all he would be dependent on them. As such they would have the ability to command him and the capacity to enforce said commands. But with reincarnation? He was completely independent of whomever had caused this; they could never have leverage over him. _Well, outside of threatening to murder as many people as they could, but even that would just make them his immediate enemy. Why put the immense amount of energy required to reincarnate me just to be in mortal conflict?_ So, assuming his ‘benefactor’ was not insane, who could have an interest in him functioning independently? Who benefited from this?

The person outside called out, their voice light and tired. “Did you move the John Doe to the sub-zero chamber?!”– They worked here? a mortician perhaps... 

He could not think of a single person, nor entity, who would want his independence. It was such an antithetical concept for the denizens of the moonlit world to have the ability to control another, relatively powerful being, and choose not to.

“water? the hell did you spill?” the mortician muttered to themselves.

On to the second possible conclusion then. 

He was somebody’s accident and, as was the case for most accidents, he was about to be cleaned up.

“He should still be on the table?” came the shouted reply as a second person entered the room. in a more level tone, they added “the centre locker – not the negative temp’ chamber. I guess I closed it.”

_Ah. Time to be somewhere else then. Shock and awe?_

He slowed his breathing down and focused his activated circuits, reinforcing his arm shoulder to fist as he punched his locker’s door off its hinges. There was a shriek and an out-of-breath “urgh” as he slid the steal gurney back out and swung his legs over the side. He looked the two strangers in the eye, assessing. Their faces painted in shock and horror as they stumbled back towards the counter and away from Emiya. He found his balance and stood making his way for the stairs. _They’ll think they imagined this, still, best not project any clothes till I’m out of sight._

He snatched the muffin– his body needed the nourishment– as he climbed them to the top and stopped, listening to the vague sounds of panic from bellow, as he searched for an exit. He took a bite out of the muffin and moaned lowly. _still warm._

There was a side door, on the right, so he moved towards it and ran his hand along its handle while structurally analysing it. 

It wasn't locked. 

He sighed, _Right; clothes then._ Black slacks, boxers and a grey washed shirt appeared in his mind’s eye, followed by a thick beige scarf and knee length black woollen overcoat. 

Every stich and fiber woven, the story they told all together, made clear to him in the shadow of a second. 

He pulled again on his magecraft, circuits burning, to project them onto himself.

That in itself was more tiring than it ought to be. He really needed sustenance- and rest. 

He needed to be at his peek before he was found by any ‘cleaners’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates are going to be slow-ish. I'm neither a dedicated nor fast wrighter. I'm aiming for, at least, once per month, however.


	2. Goal Oriented

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recognise that this work was produced on the traditional lands of the Kaurna and Ngadjuri peoples.

The door clattered against the grey-damp concrete wall as Emiya fled from the morgues compound into a dingy alley. It was dark but he could see that the chain link fence in front of him was rusted and torn with holes giving a view of the waists of grass, thorn shrubs and gravel of the plot beyond it. He stepped fully into the alleyway and jogged towards the end of the collapsing fence, taking a right.  
He moved following the footpaths incline, awash in the street’s light, the warm yellow glow from the rust flecked lamps parallel to him, intermingling with the caustic luminescent white from the nearest, more modern streetlights. 

Emiya took in the view of the tall whitewashed and monotonous four-story apartments lining the cobblestone footpaths. He could see through the allies which speared between them and, coming from over the roofs of the line of apartments in the street beyond, the dim haze of the coming sun. It would be early morning in just an hour or so. He had until sunrise to find somewhere to hunker down.  
He pulled his coat closer as he slowed to a walk. It was a cold night, still damp from not long-ago rains. 

Emiya forced himself to consider that he was not here by accident. That would then imply that magus who reincarnated him would have found a way to track him. However, as he searched his soul and body for the indication of a curse designed to amplify his mystic signature, he could not detect one. 

It was yet more evidence to indicate that he was indeed an accident. Regardless, he would need to find a defendable position and fortify it; a minor stronghold to allow him to gather information and thoroughly plan his next moves. 

He glared at the cobblestones under his feet as they were devoured by his striding gait. Each foot fall spreading his toes and highlighting his foots tendons. He shook his head and sighed, straightening his gaze to glare ahead.

His situation reminded him his brief time on Luna. Where he had infiltrated a former government sanctioned research facility, at the centre of the massive city-habitat ‘lúa Stadt’. 

It was then a private research facility. 

He came only to find it had become the cover for a massive criminal organisation. They had named themselves for a hound of some kind… Of the Baskerville variety perhaps. During his investigation he realised that they had been preforming invasive experimental procedures on both the humans and non-humans vacationing in lúa Stadt without their consent, aiming to find ways to intermingle the alien’s preferable genetic traits into human soldiers.

It was after he had exposed them to the military arm of the systems coalition, that they had scattered and reformed into independent cells throughout the human territories, within the city of stars, closer to the centre of our galaxy. 

Disbanding into isolated and singularly focused cells did them some good, yet it became the downfall of many of them, the tracking curse Emiya had placed on the original research divisions head. It was laid lightly onto his soul and, like a virus transmitting the location it’s host computer, it had led him to exposing many of their new cells. Had the Researcher been a magus, they would have founded with just some soul searching, and seeing as they were not? 

Well, in any case, if the lead researcher had just stopped for a moment and calmed enough to just re-consider their foundational assumptions about the world in which they existed… then… Wait….

What? 

_I’ve never been to the Moon – theirs no habitats there, certainly not one the size of a mega-city._

But the memory was to visceral, to complex and rational and lived in, for all its impossibility. Come to think of it, he had an abundance of memories regarding time spent not just on Luna but planets in other solar systems, other clusters and nebulas, all of them teaming with nonhuman sentient life. How could this have happened?

He felt off balance. A car passed by and he flinched. He pulled his coat closer; his clothes where hanging off his hollowed frame. He thought about re-sizing them, but he really ought to conserve energy. He bit into the muffin and found it bland.

So, manifesting on worlds other than earth… 

He could vaguely remember the involvement of Alaya, the manifested conscious will of humanity, and something that had required his independence… What could Alaya want with his independence?  
Had he been summoned there? 

Amongst a Republic of other alien beings? For what purpose? 

He glared a little harder at the dark in front of him as the incline evened out and the street meandered right. A person walking towards him took in his visage and crossed to the other side of the street.  
Confusion became clarity. 

In that instance, that strange and wondrous time, he had been reincarnated by Alaya to provide aid to the alien the counter force had manifested within. But a thought struck him. 

_That’s not how it – this life – works._

Counter guardians come only after the counterforce fails – always. Moreover, he had never thought it possible for the counterforce to manifest in something not born of this world. Although, he realised, they may well have been _born_ here – some great event re-forging their very Origen. 

Emiya sighed. The morticians had spoken English. He looked around him for a landmark, something to indicate which English-speaking nation this was, yet there was nothing in the damp haze sun-speared grey. He would likely have to steel some food and water in the next few hours, preferably from a supermarket, so he could make something nutritious to recover this withered body. 

Regardless, something like his current situation had happened before and this gave him some template to apply now. He could recall in the first instance of reincarnation he had been provided with strict instruction from a phantasmal being, one who had represented Alaya, and provided instructions he had carried out with proficiency – as was his way. He and the manifestation of the counterforce, some young reptilian or perhaps amphibious woman, had been victorious.

_Still…_

Where these memories real? Well, he knew that Alaya could, without doubt, produce the power needed to reincarnate a phantasmal being like himself. And the memories… They were so real… And simply too complex to be falsified; stained with just enough consistency and that special brand of stupidity of sentient actors, that it could only be real. 

So, what did this imply. That Alaya had reincarnated himself in in the past–future? He ground to a halt, coat and scarf swaying momentarily. _Or… in that reality? Or… in that realities future’s past._ He ground his teeth glaring ahead of him just a little harder as he renewed his marching forward. His lips pressing into a firm line and becoming a pale white. He spied a paper out front of an apartment to his left. He reached down for it taking it into his left hand finally noticing his bare feet.

 _Right, shoes._ There was nothing for it – reducing his feet to taters by stepping on broken glass would hardly be beneficial. He breathed in deeply and sighed letting his body, posture and expression relax. He projected some sneakers over his feet, taking the time to ensure they were to his diminished size.

So, it was perhaps Alaya who was responsible for this. 

But no, that couldn’t be right; there had been a clear mission then, provided by a phantasmal being who had overseen his reincarnation on Alaya’s behalf. There had also been an explained necessity for his physicality. He could not remember any form of direction regarding the current case of his very real body.

Ultimately, his original hypothesis was still the most likely explanation given the evidence – or lack thereof.

At any rate, the how of his being here was not particularly important in Emiya’s eyes, outside of its assembly of potential enemies. 

What was important were his strange memories of other species and working alongside the counterforce. 

It was very odd for him, an entity whose essence existed _outside of time and space_ , who only manifested _here_ once the counterforce had already failed, to accept that they had been present simultaneously here to combat the same threat. That in and of itself marked the occasion as ‘special’. That he had been forced into a real body for the duration made it a fundamental exception to everything he had thought he knew about the entity who had tricked him into becoming a counter guardian.

So, how had this happened; what had made this necessary?

He knew that the counter guardians and the counterforce were ultimately just two aspects of the deterrent force, which was manifested by the will of the world: Gaya and Alaya. He knew that the deterrent force eliminated anything trying to harm – or indeed anything in a position to harm – the world. The deterrent force; white blood cells in the body of the world.

This had forced his existence when manifested _here_ into something bloody and violent. Nothing to be proud of.

The reason why, as Emiya understood it, the counterforce manifested before a counter guardian was simple efficiency. It took less energy for the world to elevate someone to the level just that of a threat and then let them fight it, than it was to summon something like him into the world. As such, counter guardians only came into being _here_ when the counterforce failed – and only in a phantasmal form, capable of physically manifesting over short periods. Never, so he had thought, as a purely physical being. 

Considering this, it seems that the threat in that future instance was so beyond a single person, or perhaps even the world’s power itself, that the world decided every aspect of the deterrent force was required at once. That the practice of conserving energy was now antithetical to its survival. The threatening entity must have been immense and utterly overwhelming for such a conclusion to be reached.  
Emiya suddenly realised the world using that much magical energy at once could have very well destroyed it, or at least left it entirely depleted and vulnerable for a long time; tens of thousands of years, maybe hundreds of thousands. 

Perhaps that was why he was here, some last dich attempt to prevent its death, flung into the void of time to prepare the world and humanity for the coming Rot.  


A threat of that degree could never have originated from this planet. _Well, that explains why I remember being off world and why the counterforce, an alien themself, had been amassing other lifeforms and civilisations._ The coming hostilities had not just threatened this planet, but all in the galaxy. How else would that woman rally so many foreign civilisations – not to doubt her prowess as a negotiator, but the good will and sense of the masses. Crusaders answering the call of the crusade.

What could instil such desperation, what had been the threat?

Emiya could recall that it was biomechanical at least. That it was corrupting, decomposing and ancient. That it had come from beyond this galaxy. 

Had it originated from a galaxy foreign to the Milky Way or squat between galaxies, a pestilence ridden insect wating for pray young and fat?

He tried to remember what it had been like to fight. 

Unsettling, he recalled. Its effect on the amassed forces had often been moral shattering. Trying to use a magecraft, the nature of which revealed the essence of things, had been a revolting experience. Structurally analysing their large and exceptionally intelligent ships had _hurt_ , had almost corrupted his very origin, unchanged even now after everything he had endured as a counter guardian. They had almost folded him from sword into tool.

Theirs were a distorting influence too every being on every world they came two. Turning comrade against comrade, before they had reduced to glass their captured worlds. They were a viral infection spreading viciously into the hearts and minds of those who sought to oppose it. 

Emiya realised that, by the very nature of Thaumatology, of mystery and magecraft, that the planetary bodies themselves… it was likely the home worlds of every sentient species had combated this plague one way or another. With their own formations of the deterrent force.

He felt horrified, as he concluded that, as planets had been captured and occupied by the biomechanics, they would have turned to favour them – a counterforce forming to aid in their strength. It was, after all, what had happened here during the end of the age of gods. Gaya had come to favour humanity over the phantasmal constructions of their worship and Alaya had become one with the world.  


_A war of the worlds indeed._

He sighed again and looked at the paper in his hand, desperate for a distraction form his morbid thoughts. 

The date read the 4th of February 2013 and Emiya stopped, bathed in the deep blue radiance of a humming advertisement overhead.

He suddenly felt sentimental. they had executed him today; back when he was still able to honestly call himself human. Before he had been a counter guardian, a being manifested periodically to clean up the messes of others throughout the width and breadth of time. 

Well, executed yesterday, considering it was almost early morning. He had never been manifested this close to his time of death before, not outside of his attempt to end his existence by killing his younger self in the fifth Grail War. That had been a strange, if eye opening, manifestation. 

But then, Emiya suspected that the heavens feel ritual was like this, always, for every summoned _servant _by a _master_. No heroic spirit, phantasmal through their legends, escaped it unchanged and so too the rule held for wayward counter guardians.__

____

Being a counter guardian had made him dull and deaf to himself; at times he lost sight of his dream to save others. It was to be expected, he had told himself. But to be _shouted down_ by a younger and resoundingly _whole_ version of himself – basically shamed into doing his duty while standing steadfast in his ideals.

____

Dream to save everyone, exist only to annihilate. Compromise to save as many people as his manifestations could afforded him. The ends did not justify the means; but still, the means were often required.

____

He took a deep breath and looked up resting his eyes, his face awash in the blue haze. He let his mind wonder.

____

People he had known and loved where still _here_ Emiya could not stop himself from noticing. Rin… A combatant in the fifth grail war and a true friend. They had not parted on good terms while he was alive. The man he had been, Emiya Shirou, had doggedly pursued his dream behaving as a hero of justice – that man had been single minded in his pursuit. She had declared him broken and had tried to help him mend, to change, but it would only have held that man – Shirou – back. 

____

It would hold him back now, too.

____

He opened his eyes staring the glowing sign but not seeing it.

____

She had still provided aid, every while and then. She was a better person than many for that. Perhaps he could give her some closure this time at least, he smiled. _if she lets me._  
Wait…

____

Emiya squinted and read the blue advert above him. It was for a general psychiatrist in the north of Kensington.

____

_I’m in London. Ah Shit. _He finished the muffin in his right hand and lowered the paper in his left.__

______ _ _

That was far too close to the headquarters of the mage’s association. The clock tower – he was directly beneath their noise. There had been no bounded field in his vicinity upon his arrival to mask the massive amount of energy required to reincarnate him. The association would have felt it. They would know his rough location and they would be coming to investigate it.  
_Focus on the now; I need something defendable; I need a building._

______ _ _

He needed to move. Get to the other side of the Thames, without moving to far East from the airport. South west then.

______ _ _

______ _ _

\----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

______ _ _

______ _ _

It took Emiya close to two hours to find a suitably isolated apartment. It showed signs of only being inhabited for brief periods, no more than roughly a week every month. He had been forced to pilfer some food and bottled water as well as some various ingredients from a supermarket, but he recalled the name, so, if the world was permitting, he could leave a note explaining himself and re-pay them. After a search throughout the apartment he came to conclude it was an art gallery and studio; filled with rooms dedicated to negative space and wire frame hooks for hanging paintings at an adjustable hight.

______ _ _

It was a four-story building, the only entry point via ground was through a long narrow hallway on the first floor. Aside from this, the bottom two floors where open and airy; dedicated to the gallery. The third was a workshop, with two dedicated easels, shelves of old, leftover tubes of acrylic and oil paints and rows upon rows of paintings, sketches and pastel works – all in storage. There was even some works of calligraphy. 

______ _ _

There was a stack of chairs in the corner. _perhaps they teach classes?_

______ _ _

The fourth floor was the least open, split into five rooms and a hallway. It consisted of a toilet, bedroom, guest room, living room and kitchen; whomever owned it clearly stayed for brief periods. He had stocked the fridge with the fruits of his theft and cooked some rice. _At least there’s a wok, not that I’ll stay long._

______ _ _

Its isolation would be necessary should the Clock Tower find him. Then, if things truly fell apart, he could tun this place into a death trap and enact a counter ambush transforming the entire house into a kill zone. He could trap them within and burn the studio till it collapsed in on itself. It would deny the invaders the building as well as serve to hide his presence here. 

______ _ _

A horrid and perhaps cruel way to die. It made him uncomfortable, considering inflicting this upon intruders. His experience in the Great Fire of Fuyuki City forcing it’s way to the front of his mind. 

______ _ _

It would be efficient if nothing else.

______ _ _

Further to his advantage were its hallways, which were narrow, and its only entrances, the front door, and a hatch to the roof. After rigging some simple trip wires with twine found in the studio’s craft supplies designed to brake glass and make noise if tripped, stationed at the tops of the stairs and the entranceway on the ground floor. 

______ _ _

Emiya separated one of the stacked straight back chairs and collapsed into it in the corner of the third floor. His earlier uses of magecraft caching up to him in his emancipated state. At least from this chair’s angle he could survey outside of the studio without being seen himself.

______ _ _

His position was defended, he was fed, stocked on food and water for at least two days, and warm.

______ _ _

And he had a real body. 

______ _ _

He hunched into himself sighing and pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes. He did not fully understand how that made him feel. What to do next… 

______ _ _

_I could do anything – anything._

______ _ _

For the first time in a long time he felt hopeful in an honest way, tinged with only the slightest wariness and caution. Cynicism, an old companion, threatening to push it out of his headspace. Yet, even having a second chance like this, it did not seem right to make waves. To construct a legend to be recorded by the Throne of Heroes as if he were a true Heroic Spirit. 

______ _ _

No, he had agreed to a contract drafted by Alaya, that after his death he would serve the world as a counter guardian, and in return he would be granted some power; enough to save the lives of those before him. While his essence, like a Heroic Spirit, resided within the Throne of Heroes, he was nothing like them. Instead, he was manifested again and again; unallowed to rest.

______ _ _

It was why his memories where so filled gaps. The Throne of Heroes my exist outside of time, but something stored in it constantly being forced to appear here – and at different points in time and space – had begun to erode parts of his essence. He supposed it occurred to all counter guardians.

______ _ _

Notoriety was not his path, had never been his path. In his soul Emiya knew he wanted to save others for the sake of, in fact the reward of, helping others. Nothing more, nothing less.  
He pressed his palms a little harder into his eyes. It had always seemed so strange for Rin to call him broken when he was such a simple machine.

______ _ _

He took in a deep shuttering breath. 

______ _ _

_So, what to do._

______ _ _

His brow quirked up and his hands fell into his lap. _Rather, what do I know? And how do I use this knowledge to maximise my ability to save others?_

______ _ _

Emiya relaxed, straightening from his hunch, beginning a meditative exercise – breathing in deeply. The plastic-tart sent of the paints and dry powder of the pastel filtering throughout his nose. He raised his left fist to count on his fingers.

______ _ _

He has a body. One. Someone reincarnated him. Two. For an unknown reason. Three. With an unknown intent. Four. He was probably their mistake. 

______ _ _

Five – a deep slow calming breath out as he raised his right fist.

______ _ _

He had memories of a time when humanity was spread among the stars like grain over a field. Six. Memories from when things had been better. Seven. Memories from when humanity had worked with other species in relative peace. Eight. Memories from when people lived longer. Nine. Memories from when people had been happier. 

______ _ _

Ten – deep slow breath in. he returned his left hand to a fist to count anew.

______ _ _

They had been content. Eleven. They had been assaulted by a vastly superior force. Twelve. They had valiantly fought against their coming genocide, and billions had died, broken and defiled. Thirteen. They had won at immense cost. Fourteen. They were still coming. 

______ _ _

Fifteen.  
Their coming. 

______ _ _

Such a small, simple and understated sentence making him feel so deeply anxious.

______ _ _

He breathed out steadily and opened his eyes, taking in the rising of the sun’s brilliant orange-red flare from the west facing window. it was an unassuming beauty, and beautiful for its unassuming nature. Steadfast. Simple. Common. Yet beautiful all the same.

______ _ _

He would prepare for their arrival, then. He would work with the people here on this planet and motivate them to forge the means for their survival sooner than they would have otherwise. If he succeeded, billions more would live.

______ _ _

How long did he have to prepare for their arrival? It was 2013, so, roughly 150 years? Or perhaps 180? 190?

______ _ _

It mattered not; his work would have been so far in the past that no one would think him the arbiter of their survival. He would forge no legend. Perfect.

______ _ _

How best to prepare, then?

______ _ _

His hands fell to his knees, coming to rest in his lap. His overall goal ought to be to get Humanity onto the galactic stage as soon as possible.

______ _ _

That would reduce the friction between humanity and the other species. It would make it less likely that humanity would be perceived as invasive or bulling if they had been apart of the wider galactic Republic for some time – at least more than five decades. Therefore, when it was suggested they band together to fight as a cohesive force, the Republic would be more willing. Less time would be waisted and more planets and lives would be saved.

______ _ _

That would require getting into space, and then motivating the Republic to either allow them full membership or allow them partial membership in the form of a client state. 

______ _ _

This could only realistically occur by ensuring that humanity had a resource the Republic desired yet could not take. Through having a large quantity of general resources – territories, population, skilled workers, armed forces – that the Republic was simply without the luxury of ignoring them. Power, prestige and resources. This could motivate them into agreeing to treaties which where mutually beneficial. 

______ _ _

It would allow for cultural exchange. 

______ _ _

Of course, this would ultimately be facilitated by the egos of the individuals and nations involved, human and otherwise. But that was nothing he could reliably influence, stuck so far in the past.  
Not something to worry about. 

______ _ _

One of the other aspects required for the galactic community to seriously consider humanity, which would also make colonising other worlds and wider systems an endeavour with a less risk, would be to unite the international community. 

______ _ _

_My, how simple my goals have become,_ Emiya thought with a sardonic pull of his lips. 

______ _ _

_Once we’re in the Republic, how could we prepare for the coming biomechanics?_ He frowned, as he realised that this would simply have to be left to the person the counterforce manifests in. He forced himself to relax again. If they were anything like he remembered them to be, then the world was in good hands. 

______ _ _

However, before any of this could take place, humanity had to get off Earth and onto other planets. 

______ _ _

So, how to get off earth? And how to make that an appealing concept for colonists, governments and businesses alike? 

______ _ _

The ability to travel throughout space with _ease_ , to a _desired_ location should be enough.

______ _ _

This would require accessible, affordable, reusable and reliant, space capable vehicles – the destinations would follow naturally from human curiosity, their need to know. 

______ _ _

This would require research, experimentation and manufacturing. 

______ _ _

That was going to be expensive; it would require funding.

______ _ _

Funding itself required interest. Or perhaps mountain of blackmail. _Well, it’ll be someone’s interest one way or another._ He smiled.

______ _ _

Now, onto the task of forming a single government. His smile melted. 

______ _ _

Well… trying to merge any of the government which had land would be practically impossible without War, or the threat of war. So that left agencies such as the United nations and the European Union… agencies Like NATO. If it could be made so that these organisations led the space program that everyone wanted to be a part of, so that they were at the head of the colonisation, then in time they would simply become the face of Humanity – at least to the eyes of other species.

______ _ _

It would basically make what ever organisation was responsible for the push into space the most relevant governing body. Japan, Britain… they could keep their territories, their power, and become obsolete on earth.

______ _ _

Hopefully, somebody could be funded to organise that, or at least motivate it. Delicate manoeuvring within politics was not his expertise.

______ _ _

At any rate, there was no use re-inventing the wheel. How had humanity realised spaceflight and governmental-unity last time? 

______ _ _

The European Space Agency had been at the head of exploration, which had led into colonisation – It had been difficult and cumbersome at first. Unwieldly. But with time and dedication and a… a discovery of some kind, a new technology. It had made most of these prerequisite aspects regarding vehicles moving off world much simpler. It had done something to… gravity?

______ _ _

Emiya sighed then stood, beginning to make his way up stairs.

______ _ _

his knowledge of these topics was limited. But he had time. All his natural life, really. 

______ _ _

It would likely take it, too. 

______ _ _

Would this mean that he could not, for the sake of maintaining this ‘program’, take an active role in saving lives? Perhaps… No, some things he could do, always. Some threats were needed to be put down. The more belligerent of the vampiric dead apostles came to mind. And he would always do what he could to stop the third magic – grail wars where simply too dangerous.  
He stepped over the tip wire in the hall and entered the kitchen, going to the fridge, gathering some ingredients, beginning to prepare a meal. 

______ _ _

These gaps in his memory where inhibiting, hopefully they would resolve themselves in the next few days. He turned on the stove, placing the wok onto it at low heat, pouring in some coconut oil.  
He shook his head; He knew that whatever it was that had made space travel accessible, it was not on earth. 

______ _ _

It had been on a planet in this solar system, and it was a gas? A mineral? He remembered that it was on Venus… or maybe Mars. Regardless, if humanity were exploring more planets within the solar system, they would find it eventually.

______ _ _

He finished mincing the mushrooms and chestnuts, moving on to cutting the green bell peppers and a cut of fillet stake into three-inch slices.

______ _ _

Ultimately, he needed more information and more people working towards this. As much as he might like, this could not be achieved alone.

______ _ _

He slid the bell peppers and stake from the chopping bord into the wok, adding a splash of soy sauce and turning the heat to high.

______ _ _

He supposed he could get both of those things at a university. A degree in some industry relevant field and contacts in the form of students and professors. Perhaps he could infiltrate the ESA itself; if he made himself valuable, he could act as a consultant, or perhaps an engineer. Structural analysis was, after all, exceptionally useful for understanding mechanical works. 

______ _ _

He tuned the stakes over. 

______ _ _

This could work… During the brakes he could work internationally hunting more the aggressive magi and phantasms of the moonlit world and re-network with his more illicit contacts.

______ _ _

He added a cup of the rice he had cooked earlier, then the minced mushrooms and chestnuts with a few pinches of thyme. It only took another five minutes to warm through. He ate at the counter.

______ _ _

He could consider these things some other time…

______ _ _

He finished his meal and moved into the guest room, removing his clothes – they would only remain for another day or two, before he would have to project them again.

______ _ _

He’d move around London for the duration of the next couple of weeks, throw potential chasers off his trail… continue to plan and re-build his strength.

______ _ _

He pulled the covers back and got into the bed. He felt his muscles relax. He closed his eyes. he was defended. He was hunkered down. There where warning systems. 

______ _ _

______ _ _

Emiya dreamed of a hill of swords and the assault of cold monstrosities.

______ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably going to update this into a crossover at some point. But i might do the first book just as a fate work. I'm thinking about it.
> 
> Updates are- intended- to be once a month.


	3. Firm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a hard two weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recognise that this work was produced on the traditional lands of the Kaurna and Ngadjuri peoples.

He scrutinised his face, dead eyed and dull through the reflection of the rear-view mirror.

The clean-shaven face and neatly combed hair.

The dark purpling bruises under his eyes and scabbed cut across his brow that he knew would scar.

Really, Emiya regretted that it had come to this. 

The past two weeks had been relentless; if only because of his weakened state. It felt as if so little had been gained.

And it had taken only the whole of those two weeks from him to turn to criminal action.

He recognised, in that subconscious way, that this had always been the most likely outcome to his unique predicament, certainly, but Emiya was hardly the type of man to acknowledge such likelihoods and their subsequent limitations. 

He was supposed to be able to surpass them, he was supposed to be _flexible_. If someone said he couldn’t do some _thing_ , that it wasn’t possible, he found a way to achieve it anyway. 

It was why he was a hero. It was how he saved people. 

_Though not today, to would seem_. Today, it seemed, he would sell his soul for nothing more than the potential of herodom.

His reflection was grimacing.

From the dark tinted windows of the SUV he’d wormed his way into he observed the financial district of the City of London as it stretched out around him. 

The modern structures, shining glass and steel, clean sidewalks- neat blocks of stone placed evenly, line in line, row by row. 

The clean-cut black suites and shining black shoes- odd splashes of colour. 

A tie, a scarf, a purse. 

Emiya adjusted his coat, folded in his lap.

The echoes of this islands, _this_ capitals, dense history leaning into and sprawling behind the uniform office buildings in the form of lingering stone halls, banks, and court houses- styles of architecture left behind then rediscovered in a cycle centuries old.

Indeed. A hard two weeks. 

Since his ‘summoning’ he had wasted a week squatting in the art studio before running into- literally- his current driver. In his defence he had been fleeing the art studio’s owners- the Triads, strangely enough.

They had chased him from the property and then spent the second week hunting him. Sleep, food, _Magecraft_ , they became luxuries he could scares afford. He needed to _recover_ , not _run_.

And they just wouldn’t leave him alone.

It seemed awfully involved to Emiya, but perhaps they had something in the apartment of a sensitive nature. 

He’d spent that night running, hiding, and relocating- again and again- before scouting and infiltrating a holiday home on the northern outskirts, from which he was able to steel two nights two nights of rest.

But they found him, in the end, so he ran some more. 

He was being generous in describing his running as such; it had been closer to a hobble. Still, on the tenth night Emiya ran into the driver a second time- not so literally-

The man was a short balding fellow with a wide smile, and he seemed to take pity on Emiya, enough so that he provided fair for a few meals. Their conversation had been short, yet the driver had seemingly gleamed then that Emiya was being chased by criminal elements. 

Emiya really did try to shelter and hunker down and obtain nourishment as best he was able, but by the thirteenth night they’d cornered him, and he had to fight… And without the precision and versatility of his magecraft- contained to the limitations of this weakened body- he’d had no recourse, no capacity, to hold back.

So, he killed them.

Regrettably, his driver saw this. Wrong place wrong time, as it were.

The balding man took it well- offered to hide the bodies and then provided Emiya with a place to stay the night.

_And when I was naturally suspicious of it all, he simply remarked he’d already sent evidence of my murders to a ‘trusted partner’ and that if I didn’t comply to a few requests he’d make me one of the most wanted in Britton._

Then he offered Emiya a job. 

Rather, he offered ‘gainful and documented employment’.

It was only during his sleepless night in the drivers shed that he fully realised the man’s aim: Grooming venerable individuals, likely prioritising immigrants, for illegal work.

And what was Emiya in this state if not an illegal immigrant?

That, Emiya had reconciled, was something he needed to fix.

At any rate, the stay with the driver was surprisingly comfortable, for all that. 

The man was a criminal but his true intentions behind his grooming and blackmail was still vague. 

He could be well meaning. 

He probably wasn’t- 

It was difficult to get a read on him; he just had one of those faces.

Emiya turned his head to read the cars centre console clock. 

Five three am. 

The roads here reflected it; people were scarcely present, even in this district. 

He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the sleek leather rest.

It would be almost impossible for him to meaningfully progress in his goal as he was now, he did recognise that. 

Rather, it was impossible as he _had_ been throughout the past two weeks. What he needed was someone to provide him with legitimacy or the mission, vague as it was, could never begin.

He was somewhat fortunate there, in a perverted sought of way.

He knew he couldn’t go to any of his old contacts- save from a precious few. 

Rin… But he didn’t know where to find them outside of the clocktower and he couldn’t be anywhere near _that_ organisation. 

Down that path sat death, lean, after a tired chase. 

They could only destroy him as he was and hinder him as he came to be; even should he attain the strongest possible position they would remain a threat, uninterested in efficacy of his aims. 

To them he would always be _that_ breed of philosopher.

Emiya held back a sigh as the SUV came to a stop outside of the headquarters of his, should all things go ‘well’, employers: A large transportation and distribution firm by the name _‘who and boots’_.

He placed his hand onto the door’s lever stopping briefly to take in the sight of his pronounced tendons and cerulean vanes sunken into the back of his hand; committing to memory the sight of his sickly, spindly, fingers. 

The balding man stopped him before he could open the door, handing Emiya a keys card ‘for early entry’ and a short, signed note for the staff.

 _Just two weeks_. 

Granted, his circumstances were dire and there was no quick nor easy fix for someone without euros, pounds, yen or even tradable valuables. Not for one without documentation or any assurances outside of their word. 

All he had was his labour- something he was deeply anxious to share even with those accepted, _elected_ , authorities let alone a British Crime Firm.

At least he could admit that his pending involvement wasn’t entirely his fault: Summons are supposed to have _some_ form of support. Someone else technically produced his circumstance; all he could do was work with it.

If nothing else, he was happy to have the opportunity. 

There really was nowhere else from him to go while maintaining his intended schedule- joining a government program was too much and too restrictive a commitment with consequences to unwieldly should he go AWOL. 

He needed the flexibility that came from working outside of the legal system.

His mind made, Emiya opened the car door and, upon the driver’s instruction, stepped up onto the foot path, walking to the revolving door of the Firm and donning his black woollen overcoat.

 _Think of the positives_. 

He could change his statis here. Sell labour for records, for shelter, for food. They might even pay him, if he was lucky. This was a necessary step, surly. Any other option was too slow or too risky or too unpredictable.

He placed his fragile hands on the stainless-steel bar of revolving door, slid the key card over the scanner, and pushed, entering the beast.

Their lobby was an immense cavernous thing, utilizing the first two floors of the complex. 

Plunging metallic chandeliers hung only a meter overhead working with the bold, almost monochrome paintings- meters in length and diameter- to dominate the neutral spaces. 

Sett into the wall opposite him was a trio of elevators, flanked by two large stairs. It would have all felt crowded if not for its simple furnishings; small gatherings of chairs, couches, and low coffee tables- all wooden, canvas and soft leather. Tan and beige and light, almost creamy, oak.

Two groups of four dark wood desks, styled minimalistically, centred in quarts on the right-hand side of the entrance way, separated from the left-hand side of the lobby only by a small walkway. An elegant red carpet with a calming repeating pattern provided the finishing touch.

It all oozed wealth.

The artificial sent of pine permeated through the air as the janitorial staff cleaned and tidied. 

Emiya almost felt a light heat building on the back of his neck- _vaguely_ embarrassed, standing there in clothes that hung off his emaciated frame.

At least he’d been able to wash them clothes and bathe during night in the shed. This could be used to his advantage, at least. He didn’t look like he belonged, not here, and that would unsettle someone, force them off balance for a moment and yield a small advantage in whatever negotiation lay ahead.

Assuming they would even indulge in the pretence of his freedom to be here.

The falsetto of a raised voice reached him, “Can I help you?” 

Their tight and quick pronunciation indicating a veiled panic. 

_I need this to work_. 

He looked over to the large bar like desk spanning the entire left-hand side of the lobby. A young man dressed neatly in uniform watched him expectedly, his hands on the desk in front of him twitching slightly. Impatient perhaps – or was he already uncomfortable with Emiya? Maybe nervous?

“Good morning” Emiya announced as he approached the man, walking meaningfully to the desk before he proceeded to place the key card down, caging it with his fingers. 

“I believe you can help me,” Emiya smiled.

“Really?” the secretaries mouth tightened further. 

He began to say something else but Emiya cut him off, trying to keep him off balance- there was a chance, no matter how small, that the man would try to have him thrown out _before_ hearing him.

“This is for you,” he said, flashing the note before placing it on the polished surface of the desk.

The secretary glanced down at it.

“A letter of introduction, as I understand.”

The man’s eyes narrowed as he picked it up and unfolded it, reading. 

His eye’s flashed back up to Emiya’s; the confused look having become a suspicious look. 

“Well… I just need to check something, sir”. He turned on the spot and hurried off further down the bar-desk to a second receptionist- his director perhaps.

If he wasn’t so feeble Emiya would have listened in, but as it was, it just wasn’t worth the energy or the risk of damaging something. Regardless, the two talked, and as the other man looked Emiya over, Emiya observed him in return. 

The director said something, and the secretary returned along the length of the desk. 

“If you’ll just follow me, Mr?”

 _Ah right_. “John Doe.” 

Emiya could’ve hit himself.

The secretary’s eyes tapered further as a slight sneer wormed its way onto his face. “John, alright. We’re just going to the thirty third floor, so if you’ll follow me?”

The man might have thought him insipid, giving a clearly false name – but ‘John’ felt a familiar and focussing humour at its use.

The assistant walked out from around the desk and led Emiya to the left most elevator.

They began their assent; the receptionist muttering about an appointment with their second legal department. 

_They’re really considering employing me then_. 

They had him at a disadvantage, he needed them- but they didn’t need him. More, they had blackmail, although, the longer they waited to deploy it the more risk was involved for the balding man: After all, he- as a citizen- did have a duty to report such crimes and choosing not too could make him an accessory. 

Still, the game would continue. 

He needed intel. 

“So, what are the primary items distributed?”

“Who and Boots buys, sells and distributes a large verity of illicit cargo, although we do, naturally, cater to specialised services; categories of which include scamming, laundering, Commy burgs, corporate espionage and sabotage, protection and enforcement, management and employment of toms, knockers and general and niche black hats- you understand that this is a multinational industry and that we do aim to compete rather competitively.”

“Specialisation is rare; employees are expected to dabble outside of their fields,” he finished.

 _Ah- probably an international Firm, then_. “And the primary demographic of the clients?”

“Sir should ask someone more integrated to sir’s industry- I would suggest waiting until your appointment with the administrative legal team and pestering the assigned fellow.” The assistant paused for meagre instant, their face twisting into something that could be called contrite- if one where being generous. 

“Assuming everything goes well with legal, on the gentlemen’s end.” They resumed.

“And the firm’s contractors?”

They shook their head negative and restated “Sir should ask someone more integrated into sir’s industry. Although they may not be at liberty to discuss such topics; we’ve undergone a recent shift in regional employ, as such contractors are still subject to change.”

“Ah, I’m sorry hear that. Though if I may continue?” They nodded.

“How would you describe the working conditions?”

“Immaculate, if one works in the correct areas, and to the best of their ability.”

“And which areas are the correct ones?”

His smile was bland. “An excellent question.”

 _Lovely_. Emiya wanted to ask about their command structure and how _exactly_ their finances were linked, but he was pushing it as is. 

Whatever they wanted him for, it wasn’t his curiosity.

The best-case scenario was him being selected into an office job from which he could make some money and recover from the nourishment deficiencies of being some magi’s fuck up. 

Depending on whatever the letter of introduction said, he may be able to- given time- steal some clients from one of the Firm’s less harmful industries and fines some way to work independent from this Firm…

If he could sink it on the way out. Betray them to the police…

It would gain him some degree of immunity from any illicit actions he committed on the Firms behalf. That would make influencing the outer atmospheric transportation research and development industries less difficult, when it came time to do so. He would still be able to fund, perhaps even develop with, the ESA.

Well, it was a worthwhile goal, regardless.

 _OK, new plan; get in deep, steal potential clients, sabotage the firm, sell them to the police…_

_I’m going to need to refine that…_

The elevator dinged and the attendant straightened. 

“Thank you for your cooperation, John.”

The door opened and the attendant smiled, gesturing into the hallway beyond the elevator.

Emiya smiled back and exited while the doors closed neatly behind him and the attendant fled back down to the lobby.

He took in the row of chairs lined against the right wall and the tidy desk tucked into the left, aesthetically pressed into a small inlay at the centre of the hall. The two glass doors on either side of the hall and desk which joined the hall to what looked to be this floor's office spaces had not a smudge between them.

Emiya walked towards the centre most seat, in front of the desk, and sat down.

He was going to be sitting here for a while, he knew. It was to their prerogative to make him compliant in as many ways as was convenient. 

They’d wait him out, make him tired and disoriented and agitated and unconfident and… thirsty. Emiya ran his tung along his drying gums.

Hell, even in need of the rest room. 

If it made him less coherent and didn’t dissuade him from taking the risk of not working with the firm, it was a sound strategy. 

So; Emiya leaned back into the chair, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to rest. He was going to wait, so he sat… 

As a secretary came to sit behind the desk, as employees came into the hall and entered the floor proper.

And waited…

And indolently watched people come and go…

And waited…

And practiced circulating prana though aching circuits and foreign sinew…

And waited… 

And raised to pace, only too told to sit back down after only four minutes- as directed by the secretary 

At least they left and returned with a plastic wrap sandwich and bottle of water for him…

Alas, the sandwich was bland and damp…

And still he waited… 

And realised that the pattern in the carpet caused an optical illusion if one stared too long…

And waited… 

He knew he was being dramatic. It had only been about seven hours. Maybe six and a half. He sat forward leaning his elbows on his knees while rubbing his face, pressing his fingers into his eyes… _if I’m subtle I could probably stretch a little_.

“John?”

He sat up suddenly, “mh?”

The attendant smiled and put their iPad down. “legal is ready for you; just in office four.” 

“Of course, thank you for your patience.”

“Of course, thank you for yours.”

Emiya stood taking a deep breath in. _Passport, Personal history, Birth certificate and they get whatever they want- within reason; within negotiation_. He crossed the hall and firmly grasped the handle for the floor proper, opening it before sighting his destination and striding towards to his next problem.

The offices where pleasantly designed, with space in mind, and organic looking furnishings. The walls coloured warm oranges and greens. He knocked on the next glass door before entering, ignoring the slight scrutiny offed by the person behind the desk before him.

he smiled before taking a seat and they smiled back, holding it for a few seconds before introducing themselves.

And not ten minutes into the convocation, Emiya began to strongly suspect that this was going to be rather difficult.

Five hours later and Emiya could calmly claim that, with a smile, he’d kick this fucker to death any time of the week.

“Right well, so then, just to make this _very_ clear; _you’re_ going to be paying for,” their green eyes darted down to the paperwork in their hands, “a birth certificate, driver’s license,” their manicured eyebrows flew up for the seventeenth time, “ _dual_ Japanese and British ‘Citizenships’, a dual citizenship passport to reflect this and, finally, a record of attendance at Fuyuki city north public junior secondary school and senior secondary school.” 

She let go of the papers and leaned back into her sturdy looking blue office chair before perking up yet again. “And of course, various recorded physician visits in Fuyuki- and as of the past two years, England.”

How she could say that like they hadn’t already repeated it three times in the past two hours…

Emiya slid his forearms and elbows onto the desk as he leaned forward, the slightly too corrosive bright blue-white office lighting halloing his shadow where it fell on the desk.

It was too artificial and irritated his eyes, perhaps to induce a more wakeful state in workers. He tilted his head down to shade his eyes with his fringe hair, making some effort to slightly modify his posture to appear lazed and comfortable. The position also better enabled him to see the attendant’s focused expression as they read over the proposition the firm had ‘offered’ him. 

Apparently that letter held more than just a little sway. The balding man was important to the Firm somehow, it seemed.

Emiya took a deep breath in; his now skeletal chest and shoulders rising and falling shallowly. He felt annoyed, disappointed and slightly confused. Happy, at least to have some avenue for the documentation. 

_I really think this has gotten out of hand_. Still- He could push for a little bit more.

He brought his hand to his face and sighed into the palm, just as the attendant sighed into the paperwork held a scant inch from their face… Well, at least he had not suffered the churning system of pullies, wheels and gears that made this firm’s bureaucratic machine alone. He could take some victory in this employee being just as done with him as he was with her.

Emiya opened his mouth to speak and the attended frowned deeply and patronisingly what must have been their tenth deep, patronising, frown in the past half hour. Still, she didn’t cut him off.

“We can reduce the number of jobs by one. Four suits us everyone involved better- It’s a nice round number, too. Gives the firm plenty of time to plan of me, advertise for and acquire more opportunities. It’s a shorter refractory period; the firm will be able to decide whether I’m needed in a more permanent capacity quicker- think of what could be saved in rent and utilities. It’s not as if I’m not going anywhere- I have nowhere to go. As you’ve pointed out. Repeatedly.”

They checked again their papers, looking back up to eye him, searching for a tell at of inconsistently, an indication that he could be browbeaten down any further. 

Though the both of them had begun this talk employing every subtlety, sometime in the past hour the facades had slipped. He was so tired.

They cleared their throat, adjusted their posture and smiled like the clear history of their suspicion could be forgotten. Emiya held back a snort; even though they had dropped masks, an attempt at subtly was still made, if only for show. She put the papers down. 

“Perhaps, as this is not inexpensive, and considering…Well, seeing as the firm has an understanding of your resourcefulness, and in keeping with your _position_ it is expected that you will ensure five knocks, as appointed by contracts procured at this firm’s leisure, to be executed before the end of the next fiscal year”. They coughed into their fist to clear their throat. “Should you complete said jobs before the end of the fiscal year than you may be granted a larger degree of freedom within the firm; specifically, in choosing contracts.”

_This has definitely gotten out of hand. Maybe he should just accept that this was the best he could get?_

The attendant continued; “seeing as the firm knows you can be reasonably expected to achieve contracts, with some aid from the firm, this contract,” they pushed a small document towards him “states that the firm will take a majority share of the profits. Furthermore, as the firm will be acting in the vein of your promoter during the undertaking of your contracts, you will be placed in a who and boots friendly apartment, rent free, until this month’s end. After which, you will be charged a reduced rent for the first six months of your lese.”

They were going to just put him into an apartment and pay his bills, hell, they were paying for his groceries- there was, supposedly, a cheche waiting from him at reception. 

“Five just seems unwise…” He cleared the scratch in the back of his throat, coffing into his hand. “I’m sorry but, what did you say you name was?” It was Jennifer, but it felt good to be petty; one couldn’t pretend otherwise.

They smiled a numbingly fake smile. 

“ _Jennifer_. They’re hardly going to be large targets, so you don’t need to be quite so unsure; you be fine, _sweety_ , I promise.” 

She hummed and leaned forward.

“Moreover, the firm will be letting you keep a margin of the profits, without taking a cut to pay for provision of our other services – though you understand that, as you’re not a priority within the firm, the individual contracts will be decided and provided by _our_ handler. They’ll get around to you latter this evening. As such, your relationship with said handler could prove to be rather impactful to your work here. So be sure to maintain a good, healthy, working relationship with them, ok?” She stopped smiling.  
“Oh, and welcome to the firm, I’m sure you’ll prove to be an interesting new member to this enterprise.” _Member? He wasn’t a member at all dammit!_

Emiya sighed.

“We’ve already be over this.”

They smiled broadly, ignoring him, “You know, this all comes under our charity work, actually? It’s an old policy, that- a vestige from the nineties. Back when the firm relied on more on national support. Still, tax deductible and all that, isn’t it?” They shook their head and huffed a half-laugh snicker. “Regardless, at least we’re not Glaswegians, eh?” The attendant laughed. “Would have just forced you to carry out he knock contracts without any real support.”

They were quiet for a moment. Just staring. “Nothing to add, Mr. Doe?” 

“Hmm.”

“Well then, that’s that concluded.” She stood, “if you will just take the elevator back down to the ground floor and go to reception– tell them you have an appointment with Miss Tanya in the administrative legal team. I’ll send through the rest of the relevant information to them- wouldn’t want them to forget this is charity” she smiled. Handed him some paperwork ‘so ‘his manginess’ wouldn’t be thrown out on his way down’ and pointed towards the door.

Emiya almost stumbled when he reached the reception desk in the lobby, a deep burn in his eyes- seeming to lance half into his skull- flaring the moment he stepped into the elevator. His body ached in that dull tired way. 

The attendant’s face smoothed into a pleasant smile and Emiya, perhaps in his extortion, found it infectious. 

They lowered their iPad.

“Can I help you?” 

Their name tag read Matilda.

“Yes, thank you, my name’s John,” Emiya smirk almost twisted into a grimace, “and I just finished with Tanya in administrative legal; they suggested that I speak to the staff here regarding accommodations and a premature paycheque.”

Matilda took a moment to tap on their iPad, as she pulled her blazer closer around her. 

An enormous _strike_ sounded and Emiya flinched into his loose clothes before briefly looking to his left into the rain-scape that the outside world had become during his stay- the thunder strike echoing into throbbing cracks.

Through the glass he watched as the rain fell in ever more violent waves, beholden to the wind. A chill was creeping through the gaps under and about the revolving doors.

She handed it to him, then, his cheque. He just stared at it. “Just pop by the bank and they’ll sort that.”

Emiya slid it off the counter into his hand and checked it over; 500 pounds for the month. He didn’t have to pay for rent yet, or power or water. Kind of them he supposed- although he knew that they were trying to indebt him to them, trying to make him dependent. 

It was heavy handed, but it would work on most others. An unsubtle approach screening a more insidious one, certainly. 

He could work with that, after all, he’d done more with less. 

“Alright John, you just need to sit tight for a few minutes while we organise a Taxy for you. Your sponsor apartment is just a street away from a bank.” She smiled again, “I’m sure you find that covenant”.

“I will, thank you Matilda.”

she hummed “Of course- and thank you; this took longer than it should have, I _am_ sorry for any inconvenience.”

Withholding a sigh ‘John’ made his way to the last unoccupied armchair of the vast red velvet room, and as he sunk into it- feeling much like a drunk falling into a well-loved bed- he felt his muscles relax deep into its cushioned leather. 

His eyes slid close and John couldn’t bring himself to resist keeping them so. He felt like he’d been talking to obstinate homunculi all day, despite only talking to five people. So much time wasted to power plays and bureaucratic maundering. 

For all that, it had been worth it. He’d get a place to sleep, some pay and so many records that this misadventure and all evils that followed his path could only be warranted.

 _What a disgusting lie_. This would be a satin blotted into his history.

All due to nothing but his inability to creatively solve his problem of legitimacy he was going to kill strangers at the _will_ of strangers- and humans were so fickle, the chances of any one of them having a valid reason to be buying another’s death?

Should he kill even a single person for his uselessness, his inability, he would be tainted. Marked as a moral agent without-

And in his head, John laughed.

Could he not be done with this philosophy yet? It was tiring. It was without any practical application save the dilemma its thought briefly spawned.

He peaked open an eye, spied a clock on the far wall, before closing again in resignation. Fifteen past five.

He knew so deeply and fundamentally its resolving conclusion _should_ just be assumed. That, the acceptance of casual death dealing, was very much the point: One soul for two and all its trappings…

However…

He slunk yet further down into the depths of the soft and inviting leather. Into the warmth that had seeped from his brittle body and into the hide.

Simply: sometimes it was good to kill entirely innocent people, to commit the act of murder- but it was never good to find that conclusion without the necessary prior consideration of other solutions and experiencing the moral struggle that followed.

For one should never kill lightly. 

Thus, this loop of thought and stress and loathing, this loop ending eternally with clear resignation to its renewal, would maintain; for it was what the desire for justice demanded.

He was working for this firm. He would work so he could fulfil that desire. Until the very instant he could enact the finale of whatever plan he formed while in their grips to destroy them. 

Until such a moment, he was _their_ killer. 

Except that wasn’t right, not wholly. Emiya still had most of his ability to self-actualise. He was his own person and his own killer about to be temporarily aligned with underground elements through the enactment of ‘knocks’. 

Still…

Death dealing because it was convenient?

Besides, this only considered the clear and immediate evil he would inflict- the full scope of his actions was so much worse, so much more widespread.

Emiya opened his eyes, watching the other people in the room as they muddled about with purpose. Talking and chatting. Fulling out paperwork. One or two leaving early, finished for the day, saying their goodbyes before braving the weather.

How many knew?

Hell, how illegal even was this premises? 

Did they think the entirety of _who and boots_ to be a lawful enterprise?

But the attendant was returning, looking at someone behind his chair as she approached. 

“Mister Doe? Your taxy is waiting outside.”

He stood and nodded bidding thankyous and goodbyes to the attendants before exiting through the maw of the firm into the soft grey light of the financial district, his polite expression concealing the heat of his thoughts. 

The water pelting and pushing on his coat and face did feel restoring at least. 

A blue-black taxicab was pulled over a dozen feet down the street, and he made his way to it before he asked the driver if they were here for him. Upon their conformation he got in then took off his overcoat, folding it over his lap- _no need to be rude_.

He relaxed as he exhaled, letting his head thud against the rest. _Really wish I’d been able to sleep last night_. He managed to keep his eyes open, at least, blankly taking in the cab and the driver.

It’s new shine posh-look and his drivers’ smart white shirt, still fragrant with the spice from whatever he ate for lunch. 

Emiya looked out the window and tried not to think of food. 

Where it touched his arm, the texture of the upholstery left him feeling scratchy.

When he arrived at the apartment he’d go shopping for food.

Then he’d sleep. 

Then he could think it all through. Take the time to gather his bearings in peace, without worrying about giving something away to ‘the other’. 

_Shit. I need a drink- just some energy, by the root please_.

…  


\----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----  


…

It took another twenty-seven minutes for the taxy to arrive at the apartment. 

And then, here he stood. 

The apartment had been integrated to be part of a multi complex, two stories in all, almost taking up the whole block. He entered by the front.

The first floor was dedicated to shops; its halls filled with cameras, the odd security guard and rot-bloated with witnesses- rather: People. 

The second was dedicated to apartments.

Shoppers- that could make what was surly to come difficult- he’d need a disguise, but then, he’d have needed that anyway. 

_I’m going to need so-_

_I can’t believe I’m doing this_.

Emiya just shuddered and climbed the stairs at the end of the complex’s east hall, stopping himself just as he angled his keys against the lock; his apartment door was ajar and the socket for the lock fractured and useless. At least the peep hole seemed to work. 

He entered the apartment proper and watch as the white paint of the windowsill, inlaid at the end of the entrance hall peeled up and fluttered in the cold wind. The clock above it read one thirty.

This establishment was old, maybe from the 1700s- Emiya had to resist the urge to place his hand against the wet wall on his left and examine its likely storied history. 

The rooms guts were falling out. The plaster cracking and the wooden skeleton visible from where the insulation had decayed. It was cold and it was damp.

 _Fuck. I’m going to need blankets- IS THERE EVEN A FRIDGE!? A STOVE!?_.

He pressed his hands together and worried his right thumb into his left palm.

There were three doors along dreary hallway; two along the right and one at the end on the left. He threw each open, quickly scanning their rooms contents before flying to the next.

He had a kitchen- it wasn’t stocked, but it did have an oven and a stove and pots and pans and everything an _English_ cook could want. 

He had a bed now, too. Nothing fancy, and the mattress smelt suspect- but he’d just have to endure. Even if he worked hard and saved, well, it wasn’t a justifiable expense- not when the current one was still springy. 

Maybe if he soaked it in something floral?

He had a living room with a desk, and a small couch, large enough for two. A table against the wall, hard wooden chairs tucked neatly underneath.

Really, the only problem was the _mess_ of paper trash and refuse littering the floors and some of the countertops. He’d need some cleaning supplies. Something to get out the coke and coke stains.

_Do I even have a bin to put out?_

Regardless, food, cooking necessities- oil, salt, steel wool- cleaning supplies and a change of batteries for the clock… _And something that disguises me from the CTV_. These were the priorities. 

He’d just have to lock the door with a chair jammed under the handle.

Emiya fell onto the couch and watched the enthralling view from his living room’s window- the opposing buildings whitewashed brick wall.

At least only the bedroom’s mattress smelt. With all the windows been left open the rest of the smells had been cleared; it didn’t even smell damp from the rain.

 _Shit_ , he’d need work soon or he was going to be out of funds within the month just trying to fix this place to liveable. 

A deep breath in.

 _No, think about this differently… All I have to do is recover from the malnutrition, then I can project anything I’d need_.

A calm breath out.

 _There’s an Aldi two streets over. Get some food. Something cheap and easy and British_.

A slow breath in.

 _Eggs, bacon, sausage, beans. Bread for a ‘toad in the hole’- as the British called it_. 

And fresh vegetables.

 _My ‘handler’ would be coming latter. Best be ready for whatever that entails_.

A calm breath out.

And half an hour later, one fridge stocked, and cleaning supplies lined neatly along the living rooms narrow table, Emiya could attest that sitting, stomach as full as he could manage, that the apartment situation seemed entirely manageable.

But as he set about cleaning the paper refuse strewn across the floor, and removing the dubious stains, his mind wondered back to the Firm.

They would continue to try to push him into their social structures so to make him more compliant. A stranger asks you to kill someone and you stop to think- a friend asks? You don’t think for half so long.

It doesn’t take much to move one from ‘considering’ to ‘enacting’ when loyalty and its hangers on’s- social expectation and pressure- were involved. The less said about interpersonal emotional connections, the better. 

It wouldn’t even be all they tried. They’d aim to indebt him to them, as they already had with this apartment… Possibly they would pressure him through the law, force him into a stricter contract- though they may not think it necessary, he was already firmly in their world, their jurisdiction. All they needed to be sure of was his silence, and reliability. The blackmail was liable to sustain that.

Emiya sighed at a particularly resilient stain.

He would need to deceive them. Lead them to believing that they had succeeded in digging their hooks deep to his flesh, so his betrayal would be as unexpected as it was necessary.

When they realised they had failed to bind him to the firm than they would resort to either more severe blackmail or, more likely, burning him outright- cutting him off from every little resource and throwing him to the dogs. Which avenue they chose would depend on his value to them… 

Which was the more desirable outcome? _Suppose I wouldn’t know till this truly kicks off_.

He scrubbed his face, pawing over it with his hands, hard- rubbing the grit out of his eyes.

It was getting harder to think; he’d need to prioritise making a meal plan for the coming weeks and having a nap… Or maybe just going to sleep.

Emiya bagged the last of the trash littering the hall, legs aching with every step.

 _The sleep option sounded good_.

At least he could solve that issue now that he had a place he needn’t worry about getting thrown out of- not so soon at least.

The balding man this morning had seemed so keen to pressgang Emiya into the firm. It made sense, from some perspectives; competent killers for hire where finicky in his experience- strongly independent, too. And they almost always came with a large, if well obscured, paper trail.

Emiya lacked those traits, in so far as the Firm knew, and had less paper trails than even the balding man would suspect.

Still, it was strange. This was the twenty first century; crime worked best when decentralised- it made it a versatile and slippery industry. A hit man would be most reliable to work and continue to work if they remained independent from a larger command structure.

It was true for most criminal industries. 

The Firm had to know this, and so the question lingered; why take the risk on him being dependent on them?

Emiya slowly walked down the stairs, a trash bag in each hand. 

Why make him depend on their resources? Take contracts through them? Use their safehouse?

What was the advantage of an integrated hit man?

He wasn’t the only one, either… _Jennifer_ had hinted at there being others.

The outside’s cold bite remained; despite that it had stopped raining. He dumped the bags into one of the skips at the back of the complex and made his way back inside and up into his apartment.

It was odd. He knew that they needed hit men and that they needed them dependent to their command structure. _Although I am assuming that the others are as dependent as myself. For all I know there just doing this because they think I’m an illegal immigrant, and they want some ability to track my movements, so I don’t just go to ground with the 500 pounds_. 

Hit man… Is that what I am?

He was supposed to be better than this, beyond this form of extortion and limitation; but then such thinking was for his youth.

Besides someone else in his position might get it wrong or be unnecessarily cruel in their execution of the task. Perhaps they would be working for the wrong reasons- just for the money, or for some warped pleasure- for the very power killing gave one over another. 

That someone could have become loyal to the firm, too. 

Emiya may have been in the right place at the right time to save someone else from being forced into this position, groomed and strong armed into killing for criminal elements. 

_They_ would lack the necessary experience, the know-how, the equipment, perhaps even the strength of will carry it out. 

_They_ would be terrified and alone. 

But did that didn’t justify his decision, not really.

These people that he’d just considered, they were only hypothetical- If he hadn’t been found by the balding man it’s possible no one would have taken his place. That the contract would have remained unsatisfied.

These ‘possible’ people stood in the limbo of his mind; stuck in being and non-being, and all the starker in their juxtaposition to the human potential he had been hired to kill. 

Did his mark have a life they enjoyed? 

Certainly, they must have a mother and a father- would they greave them? Or where they dead, and would Emiya be destroying their last memory, as kept by the mark?

Perhaps the only realisation to sooth him was this: he was the implement in these killings, so these killings would be quick and painless.

The only thing that could stop that would be good security, and his bad luck making for an off-centre shot.

 _Yes, better I be the cause, the blade. Better it be quick and unexpected_. 

_Merciful_.

It would be worse, _feel_ worse, carrying the killing out. Yet here there was some comfort.

Emiya searched the cupboards in the kitchen for some of the glasses he had seen earlier while looking for Tupperware. Filled it with water from the tap and slumped against the wall, watching as the light faded into dark outside the kitchen window.

He was going to kill someone. He’d need a rout, into and out of the kill zone, a disguise as well as somewhere on the way to change into the disguise and a different place out of the zone to remove it. 

He’d buy it cheap and at random stores. He’d trash it at the end and buy a second set just before the next knocking.

Assuming they didn’t burn him after the first. He put the glass down and set himself to work walking to the store to buy hair die, before walking to a new one fifteen blocks away for a hat and so on until he had a scarf, glasses, eye liner, eye shadow, tape, blue tack, and face wipes. All tucked away in a slit he’d made in the underside of his musky mattress.

The reenergised clock in the hall now read fifteen to nine. _Time to sleep_.

Emiya jumped- there was a scuffing noise coming from outside the front door.

Someone nocked. A liaison to the firm? Maybe a house warmer? Or the clocktower- _Shit, I need to recover soon, not having safe access to magecraft is maddening_. 

_Why didn’t I set a trap in the doorway?_

Emiya grabbed a knife as he walked out the kitchen and placed his eye to the peep hole. A woman; tall, blond, a crème trench coat, and bottle cap glasses.

She seemed bord. 

_I don’t recognise her_.

He opened the door a crack, concealing the knife. Emiya worked to accent his voice thickly in the short distinct tones of his homeland. 

“Yes?”

“Hullo John.” She looked him up and down. “Let me in, thanks.” Hm. They knew him, odds were high on her being the Firm liaison, then. Still-

“Who and boots?”

She rolled her eyes, “yeah”. 

He stood to the side and swung the door inwards. She walked past him and down the hall to the last door, walking into the living room.

 _How well-mannered_ Emiya rolled his eyes and followed after her down the hall before detouring into the kitchen on the left and placing the knife back into the cutlery draw. Something heavy thudded dully against the living room table.

He made his way to her. She stood wither her back to him, fiddling with something on the table.

He cleared his throat. She grunted.

“I’m Kelly, by the way.” She called out when he said nothing.

“Noted.”

“Yep, now get over here.” 

He came to stand loosely next to her, leaning slightly on the narrow table. She’d placed out a gun, a picture and a printout of a small map.

“This is the mark; he frequents queen’s street and Smith’s avenue at about ten every night for a smoke. Clockwork mate, some addicts are like that tho”.

His face- it was so fresh and youthful. Bright red hair and vibrant eyes. Dusting of freckles. 

Somebody’s son.

Something must have shown on his face.

“He’s a rapist, apparently,” muttered Kelly, “and a creep besides. You just keep that in mind and do the job.” She didn’t wait for a response.

“This is your April-” she gestured at the small pistol “wear some disposable gloves” she gestured at the box of them sitting next the cleaning supplies he’d left out, “and dispose of it the once your done- five blocks away at least, yeah?”

It was small. Some class of small calibre revolver; it would fit snug in the pocket of his pants. Maybe better placed in his overcoats pocket?

“OI?”

Emiya nodded, “I will.”

She grunted again.

“You know how it works? Well,” she picked the ‘April’ up, before clicking off the safety “safety’s off” she clicked it back “safety’s on.” She yawned and placed it back onto the table, the thud more metallic this close, yet still dull. “That and point the barrel at him before you shoot.”

She checked her smart phone. “Well. If you go in the next thirty minutes, he should be out.”

“I’ll leave in twenty.”

“whatever, just so long as he’s brown before next Friday, yeah? I’ll be back tomorrow, settle you in a bit and give you a heads up on the contract situation.” 

She side eyed him, looking him up and down. “Maybe get a new coat, too. You’re going to want to destroy that one, if you ware it during the knock.” 

She stepped back from the table, and walked into the hall, leaving Emiya with his thoughts.

 _This is all so wrong_.

There was nothing _inherently_ wrong in breaking the law, not even in doing so though a large organisation; he’d been involved in both in the past and done clear good. 

“OI!”

Emiya spun around. “Yes?” he called out.

“Do something about this lock, yeah? Christ.” Her voice echoes from the entrance way.

“Hai.”

He waits for the click of her boots to fade down the stairs before he goes to close the front door, leaning his back against it and rubbing at the bags hanging under his eyes. 

So, nothing wrong inherently about breaking the law.

No, what it- this form of work and for this type of employer- meant was support of the whole enterprise; just as buying clothes from a store that involved a chain of supply which exploited the vulnerable.

It meant supporting all of it.

He could almost allow himself to feign ignorance, pretend that only the mark suffered.

 _How foolish_.

Realistically, what he was about to do was going to support every industry the Firm worked with, and every industry supported by those other organisations trading with the Who and Boot’s. 

That meant supporting child sex exploitation. The firm’s profits simply could not be divorced from that type of criminal function- It was hardly an uncommon thing in British crime. Hardly uncommon to any organised crime, really. 

He couldn’t do that, could he? 

It was an untenable idea. Horrific in all forms.

SO… was it all worth it?

Well. 

Five lives _is_ worth ten lives. 

Five lives _is_ worth six.

A hundred thousand lives could be destroyed, and it would still be worth it, worth any number of the hundreds of thousands he could save.

Because he could save that many, in his position.

He had his duty.

It didn’t matter who his actions hurt by extension- not if it meant a single extra year for the civilisation yet to come. A year for them to prepare.

Even if children suffered. 

Even if children were exploited. 

Even if children were raped.

Emiya pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to ignore the hollow-ache in his chest.

Sell his soul tonight, and every moment after, and buy it back with future blood made unshed.

 _At least… At least I can work towards the destruction of this Firm_. 

Emiya sighed. 

_Or was that just the gambler’s fallacy?_

Even so: He had a duty.

He walked back into the living room and pocketed the tools of the trade then went into the bedroom and retrieved the parts of his disguise.

It was time.

He walked out the front door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more week till next upload. (what a funny joke that turned out to be, hay?)


End file.
